Reading Eagle: Susan L. Angstadt |
Bethany Children's Home created a program called Helping Hands to assist the throngs of young children crossing the border from South America. Here is CEO Kevin Snyder at the front of the campus by the sign.

Bethany Children's Home offers temporary housing for undocumented children

Border crisis help in Berks

What: Bethany Children's Home, Heidelberg Township, provides a new program, Helping Hands, to house unaccompanied youths who have crossed the border from Central America. They are then united with relatives who reside in the U.S.

How it works: Children arrive at airports on the East Coast, where they are picked up by employees of Bethany Children's Home. Children reside in the home for 10 to 12 days and are reunited with their parents or other relatives.

Ages: Qualifying ages, infant to 17

Start date: June 16

Unaccompanied youths reunited with parents or relatives to date: 60

Number of unaccompanied youths housed at Bethany: 32

Bethany's annual budget: $14 million

Number of children at Bethany: 32 in the Helping Hands program and 63 others from local county children and youth services agencies.

Children are walking thousands of miles and crossing rivers to get to the U.S., where they are picked up by federal authorities along the Mexican border.

Some of these thousands of unaccompanied children are in Berks County with Helping Hands, a new program at Bethany Children's Home in Heidelberg Township.

The program, which started June 16, provides food, shelter, clothing, classes and recreation for the children before they are reunited with their parents or other relatives.

"We had one child arrive here with two right shoes on her feet," said Kevin J. Snyder, Bethany's chief executive officer. "Regardless of the situation the child is in, they are in desperate need of help. Bethany sees this as a humanitarian issue. This is perhaps the largest crisis our country has experienced regarding children since the Civil War when Bethany was founded."

This week 32 children are living in a cottage at the home. He said 40 Bethany employees are working in the program and they have already reunited 60 children with their relatives.

Snyder said the children typically stay at Bethany 10 to 12 days. So far, the ages have ranged from 4 to 14.

Each child undergoes a medical exam at Bethany.

"We have not had any children with diseases," Snyder said.

Snyder said the federal officials pick up the children at the border and determine the whereabouts of their families in the U.S.

He said the children arrive at Bethany with paperwork and the information about their relatives.

Bethany officials work with the children to find their relatives. So far, many of the relatives live in Ohio, Virginia, Maryland and Arizona.

"The parents leave their countries to get to a safer place," he said. "We have kids here who have nightmares. They have seen people being killed. They are looking to survive."

Snyder said the families pay for their children's return trip. The parents or other relatives pick up the children at Bethany or Bethany officials drive the children to their relatives.

Snyder said the parents were forced to separate from their children in their home countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Ecuador and other Central American countries.

"The parents typically leave their children behind with grandparents," he said. "Some of these children have walked for months to get to the borders.

"Kids are walking all night and all day."

Snyder said federal authorities asked him in January if Bethany would participate in the nationwide program. He said federal officials with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, asked him to apply for an emergency grant for the program.

Federal officials were unavailable for comment.

Snyder received approval at the end of May to accept the children for three years.

As part of the program, Snyder said, the amount of funding must remain confidential.

He noted the agency provided $70 per child for clothing.

"These children are so appreciative," Snyder said. "When we give them anything they thank you numerous times."

Snyder said Bethlehem is the only other place in the state in the federal program.

Snyder said the federal program has helped Bethany with its financial difficulties.

Snyder, 60, a retired executive with Redner's Warehouse Markets, said he accepted the Bethany job because it was his calling.

He said a church sermon convinced him how people can do wonderful things but they need to leave their comfort zone.

"It was the work of God that put me in this business," he said.

Contact Holly Herman: 610-371-5029 or hherman@readingeagle.com.

Border crisis help in Berks

What: Bethany Children's Home, Heidelberg Township, provides a new program, Helping Hands, to house unaccompanied youths who have crossed the border from Central America. They are then united with relatives who reside in the U.S.

How it works: Children arrive at airports on the East Coast, where they are picked up by employees of Bethany Children's Home. Children reside in the home for 10 to 12 days and are reunited with their parents or other relatives.

Ages: Qualifying ages, infant to 17

Start date: June 16

Unaccompanied youths reunited with parents or relatives to date: 60

Number of unaccompanied youths housed at Bethany: 32

Bethany's annual budget: $14 million

Number of children at Bethany: 32 in the Helping Hands program and 63 others from local county children and youth services agencies.